[DF] Maximum Skill Levels?

[Gnome]

Originally Posted by Toadkiller_Dog

Two words: Deceptive Attack.

More words: Lots of penalties.

You (generally) want your effective skill at 16+ to maximize critical success chances and minimize critical failure chances.

Skill 20 means a DA of -2 to the enemy's defenses, but only with a random location or torso shot.

Skill 25 means a DA of -4 OR DA of -2 and a Neck shot, or -3 and vitals or limbs, or -1 and skull.

Skill 30 means a DA of -4 and neck shot, -3 and a skull shot, a straight up -7, etc.

Add in lighting penalties (-2 for outside of immediate torch radius), bad footing (-2), SM penalties (for whacking smaller foes), etc., or add in -3 for Rapid Strike for a Weapon Master or -6 if you aren't, add in the desire to Feint something all the way to "practically unable to defend", etc. and you'll see why high skill is useful.

Of course you can accept a sub-16 skill, but that just means you're starting to hit less often overall, and the solution to that is more skill or going for less effective attacks. No one seems to like the second one all that much in my games.

Skill 30 sounds amazing until you need to make a Skull shot (-7) on a high-defenses opponent (say, Dodge 15) while on bad footing (-2) in flickering torchlight (-2), and want to Rapid Strike to break it up into a Feint and Attack (each at -3) so the attack gets through . . . and then it suddenly seems so damn inadequate even with a net pair of 16s. Because miss that guy and it's his turn . . .

And don't forget targeting chinks in armor for high DR opponents (-8!).